Best Practices - Community and Media Relations

Project:	The Streetworker Program
Organization:	United Teen Equality Center (UTEC)
	Lowell, MA

When the going gets tough, it’s too late to get going; but long-term community and media relations can overcome criticism. (See more about their successful strategies.)

Despite an already busy staff and being on call 24/7 to mediate gang tensions, UTEC staff and board leaders keep working to build ever stronger community relations.

“You can’t afford not to spend the time setting up meetings with top city and police officials,” says UTEC executive director Gregg Croteau, “as well as business, faith and civic leaders. It is the power of our partnerships that helps sustain UTEC’s success. These individuals also serve on our board along with lawyers, school officials and even a corporate executive. They are actively engaged in our monthly meetings and annual board retreat, they help set policy, and they have been incredible taking our message to their contacts in the community.”

All that good will came into play when UTEC relocated to the second floor of a newly renovated retail block of downtown Lowell. Storeowners voiced concerns that—although they were sympathetic with UTEC’s efforts to help the teens—their businesses could be hurt by customers’ misperceptions of the youth hanging out on the sidewalk. A petition called on the police to keep the kids from congregating there. Soon the issue was raised at city council and covered in the newspaper.

What happened? UTEC staff, board members and long-time supporters kept the focus on the center’s positive work by actively and openly reaching out to business owners, city officials and reporters. More than 25 different agencies showed up to vouch for UTEC at a city council subcommittee hearing. By coordinating all their representatives, UTEC reinforced the message that this was only a temporary location and agreed that it was not ideal.

Then UTEC and city leaders turned the controversy into an opportunity by asking all the parties to help find and renovate a building well suited to be a permanent home. (See Building Support for UTEC’s specific community relations strategies.)

In 2007 with the help of local businesses, civic leaders and elected officials, UTEC moved into a new home outside the business district but still well situated in the gang-neutral zone of downtown Lowell.

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